UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Academic advisers play a key role in supporting student success, with fall 2023 and spring 2024 Starfish data showing that retention improves substantially when students meet with advisers to discuss academic and life challenges.
Students currently are entering a critical period in the semester where they have just received feedback from their instructors from the Starfish mid-semester progress survey. When an instructor assigns a student a flag, academic advisers are expected to reach out to students and “close the loop.”
According to an analysis by the Division of Undergraduate Studies, which administers Starfish at Penn State, 93.6% of undergraduates who had an advising appointment recorded in Starfish in fall 2023 returned for the spring 2024 semester compared to only 73.9% of students without one. In fall 2023, only 51% of all undergraduate students at Penn State had an advising appointment recorded in Starfish.
“Knowing the impact that quality advising is making for student retention, as an institution, we need to look at where and how advising is being delivered successfully at scale and replicate that success in other areas to help students reach their full potential,” said David Smith, associate dean for advising and executive director of the Division of Undergraduate Studies.
Advising also appears to be correlated with more positive retention outcomes for underrepresented minority students. These students with an advising appointment recorded were retained at similar rates to students with advising appointments overall, but underrepresented students without an advising appointment were retained at a lower rate when compared with students overall without recorded advising appointments.
“Academic advisers are a critical touchpoint for our students. We are seeing evidence that advising appointments, when conducted according to the University’s professional standards for advising, lead to better retention,” Smith added.
Penn State’s professional standards for advising call for academic advisers to help students navigate degree programs, policies and resources while also engaging in proactive outreach to help head off potential challenges facing students. The standards also call for academic advisers to document interactions in Starfish, which can help ensure continuity if an academic adviser moves on from the role or a student changes colleges or campuses and is assigned a new adviser. The next assigned adviser will have access to notes from previous interactions that are convenient and confidential.
New resources launched for academic advisers
The Division of Undergraduate Studies recently launched Academic Advising News to distribute timely advising practices and information to all faculty and staff with at least one undergraduate advisee assigned in LionPATH. Information is designed to help a wide range of advisers progress in their advising skills.
The October newsletter covers topics such as:
- Progress Survey Tools and Timeline
- Acting on Elevate and Progress Survey Data Together
- Getting Ready for Course Registration
- What To Know About Late Drop
- Connecting Students with Support
- My Students and Tracking Tabs
- Student View in Starfish and LionPATH
- Advising Scholarship at Penn State
Academic Advising Seminars, formerly Academic Advising Noon Seminars, are being revamped for 2024-25. Hilleary Himes, director of advising and senior DUS programs coordinator in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, said this year’s seminar series is returning in a virtual format with a fresh slate of topics.
The next session is slated for Thursday, Oct. 31, but future sessions will be held on the first Wednesday of the month starting in December. The Oct. 31 session will feature Smith and Janet Schulenberg, senior director, Division of Undergraduate Studies, presenting “How your work as an academic adviser matters: Creating a shared understanding of the value of academic advising.”
“We were intentional in having this be the first session,” said Himes, who is coordinating this year’s seminars. “Advisers are decentralized and have different roles that we play at the University. This session is designed to bring us all together. We’re hoping there will be time for networking and discussion about the value of academic advising. Future sessions will build off this idea.”
The monthly Academic Advising Seminars are open to everyone at Penn State, including professional advisers, faculty with advising duties, administrators and staff with student care and support duties.
The Division of Undergraduate Studies is part of Penn State Undergraduate Education.